URBAN COMMUNICATION | SIGNS AND SIGNALS | STADTGESPRÄCHE

 

 

Instrumentalization of urban space

 

"Do not be terrorized by your city. Use of your city." The importance of a city develops from the events that take here place and space. Societies need to exchange information. However, it also plays a crucial role in what form this information exchange works.

 

At least as an idea, the duality of private and public space give rise to what we now take for Western democracy. The Public, the common, is something we are able to create because we gain from our private and self-determined life the necessary calm, power and concentration. The ability to perceive people in their otherness makes self-determination possible. In the immediate physical encounter we have access to information, that usually gets lost in media communication. The public space is therefore beyond the unlikely option of specific acquaintances, an opportunity to perceive social movements. Here we can observe, with what energy and frequency, certain phenomena happen.

Mobility

 

We can not move freely. But only if the access to the most desirable areas are denied, we perceive this as a restriction.

 

The mobility increases generally with the richness. Who drives in an armored vehicle behind darkened mirrored glass through his neighborhood, will learn little about the concerns of the people on the street. More than ever, the rich people see themselves as global citizens. Even if they travel long distances, they still remain mostly in a self-imposed exile. The multilayered nature of transport networks in our cities therefore have a symbolic character. We live in and travel to different worlds.

Many people divide their lives into a time in which they want to perceive as little as possible from their environment and a time of increasing willingness to get involved in something. We want to hurry into the working hours, so that we can enjoy ourselves in the rest of the time.

 

Some people want to live again permanently a self-determined life. Different attitudes meet on the transport routes today: blindness and lively interest, hurry and peacefulness, humility and bravado. In some phases of life we welcome such a controversial vitality. Sometimes it comes to confrontations between different road users. Then the cyclist complains about the pedestrian, the bicyclist about motorists, etc.